PlayStation blocks mods on Fallout 4 and Skyrim Remastered making them Xbox One and PC exclusive

In a somewhat unprecedented move, Bethesda has publicly called out Sony for blocking mods for Fallout 4 and the upcoming Skyrim Special Edition.

Writing on their official blog, the stewards of DOOM, Wolfenstein, and The Elder Scrolls wrote that despite months of development and discussions, Sony has refused to allow Fallout 4 mods to work on PlayStation. As a result, mods for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Remastered are now Xbox One and PC exclusive.

"After months of discussion with Sony, we regret to say that while we have long been ready to offer mod support on PlayStation 4, Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.

Like you, we are disappointed by Sony's decision given the considerable time and effort we have put into this project, and the amount of time our fans have waited for mod support to arrive. We consider this an important initiative and we hope to find other ways user mods can be available for our PlayStation audience. However, until Sony will allow us to offer proper mod support for PS4, that content for Fallout 4 and Skyrim on PlayStation 4 will not be available.

We will provide an update if and when this situation changes."

The last couple of weeks has not been great for Sony. Considering the lukewarm response to the feature-incomplete PS4 Pro. The recent price hike for PSN. Their refusal to allow cross-play between Xbox One, PC and PS4, and their past, frankly strange comments about EA Access not offering good value. It's beginning to feel like Sony's sales lead is leading the company down an arrogant path.

Even if you're not a fan of Fallout 4 or Skyrim, Sony's decision sets a disappointing precedent for the future of mods on the PlayStation platform. At least for now, it would seem that mods for Fallout 4 and the upcoming Skyrim Remaster will be exclusive to Xbox One and PC. If enough PlayStation fans voice their concerns, perhaps Sony will (rightfully) reverse their decision, but that of course remains to be seen.

PlayStation blocks mods on Fallout 4 and Skyrim Remastered making them Xbox One and PC exclusive

For the player. Im just sad for the general consumer and gamer, happy for the ones even considering for a second that Sony did anything for the gamer benefit and not to get the media and vocal community's support.

Complains about MS how? Listening to customers, delivering services like BC that go far and beyond what people expect of them?

I think you mean apple. You know, the company that uses its built in idiot fanbase to pay for and swallow whatever dross the company squeezes out, the company who TELL their fans what they want intead of asking fans what they want, the company that charges a premium for a stamped logo on the back of the device.

I think I speak for quite a few PC gamers and even general windows users, if MS were listening UWP wouldn't be a thing and they wouldn't have abandoned Game for Windows Live, they would have actually made it work. The only thing MS cares about is getting as many users on the MS Store as possible, they are out of the traditional console market.... just a matter of how many users buy into the MS Store.... and you can take that to bank. If it doesn't work... they'll close shop like GFWL.

UWP is much bigger than games. UWP is the way that Microsoft plans to leverage their success in the PC market to re-enter mobile and provide a competitive advantage over Sony on consoles for a position in the living room. Your many "consoles are dead" comments don't seem to be in sync with Microsoft is doing.

Who said that was not ms's goal, who cares. It's like you are responding to someone else. In ms's model win10 is your xbox, its not hardware, sorry but you seem to have a problem with their future vision.

@Mako Daisy Studios, sorry for the slow reply. I don't agree with your assertion of Microsoft's "future vision." I don't deny that you might be right. I agree with you that there is clear evidence that Microsoft is unifying PC and Xbox with Windows 10.

However, I think there is also strong evidence that Microsoft is doing that not to phase out the console, as you have asserted many times throughout your comments, but rather to increase the appeal of UWP to deveolpers so that Xbox will be able to provide a superior ecosystem value to customers and therefore be more competitve among customers than alternatives, like the PS4 and beyond.

I believe this is also part of their "return to mobile" strategy -- bolster UWP content to leverage their strength on the desktop to help sell consoles and mobile devices. That is the best explanation for the actions they are taking. Whether they are successful or not with that is a separate discussion. At this point, I'm only addressing what their stratey is, not its merits.

You serious, the Pro has no native 4k gaming credentials? I thought that was the point. I read loads of articles, and the results were contradictory. Can't surely have created a device solely to upscale to 4k, what is the point of that? Not trolling, but many sites said it would, and some said it would not.

This isn't really that hard. It's a stop gap between PS4 and 5, premium product, and for solid 1080p/60fps for VR. It's not rocket science, the very vast majority of people don't have a 4k set and there is very limited 4k content anyway, and then of course, they have moved to streaming with the majority of the world. Some games with be naive 4k, others will have to rely on checkerboarding which appears to work pretty well, in 2018-2019 in coming PS5. MS is trying to get people to switch from the PS eco-system to Windows Store Eco-system. Of course, if one believes in freedom, not sure why you would invest in a console let alone MS's Store (UWP), but that is just me.

I'm sure it will with non-demanding titles like Firewatch or Bound, but it was telling that they NEVER said 'native' 4K in their little 'meeting' this week. At best it'll do 1440p and using their (apparently very good 4x4 checkerboard system) upscaler to reach 4k-ish resolutions.

PC master race, well, if you are buying into Xbox now... you are basically turning your PC into a console, or in the process of doing so. I find this pretty funny to be honest. Real (win32) PC players are giggling at your comment btw.

People shouldn't be surprised, Sony has always been this way. I think now its really going to hurt them pulling this stunt. A big peice of humble pie with a scoop of what were we thinking ice cream is what is needed.

So, if I want to mod Halo 5 like I can mod win32 games on my PC say bought from steam or alternative, exactly how do I do that? Quite funny, tons of people visit tech site, but spent zero time even trying to figure out the most basic technology.

FFS Mako you're clutching at straws here. Sony is actively blocking something you can get on both XB1 and PC. That's it, end of story. All this other crap about a closed system is pointless, people understand what they are buying when they enter into a ecosystem. MS is attempting to open things up as much as possible across its various Win10 platforms. That's a good thing. Is there room for improvement or enforced limitations? yes. Will it improve? Who the hell knows its only just started to take shape. So quit trying to force an argument about whether an XBox and/or Win10 UWP is as flexible as a traditional pc setup when it comes to modding or development in general because no one is saying it is or that it should/could be.

Hm, you say its pointless than point out sony won't open up. haha. You are grasping at straws, I gave facts. Uwp is a closed or very closed platform. The xbox is closed platform, that is a fact. This article and the comments are quite funny, win32 users are laughing their ass off. Oh btw I'm not quitting...so the facts make you cry, too bad. Your insane argument doesn't make sense....but thanks for playing....uwp and xbox are closed systems...end of story...if someone wants freedom and mods, good luck with a console and uwp....sorry i'm still laughing at this article. Pot meet kettle. haha. Like Hitlary telling Don he doesn't understand email at this point. You really couldn't this stuff up.

What the hell is wrong with Sony? Do they even look out the window? Watching how Xbox has turned things around under Phil Spencer, Free Backwards Compatibility, the Preview Program, all the various improvements making their way to the console through customer feedback. Even debs are jumping in with the same kind of ear for the fans. Sony are going the way the Xbox One did at E3 2013.

Maybe they just don't like all the kids that trolled the Xbox all through the last few years and feel they deserve a taste of their own medicine.

I'm confused, maybe you can help me out.... I buy a Xbox One, I buy Halo 5.... I want to get into the directory/file structure of the game install so I can maybe improve it or mod it.... please explain to me how I do that?

Anyone who knows Sony this shouldn't come as a suprise. Sony always does what's best for Sony and not the consumer, some of their Shenanigans theyve tried over the years makes Apple look like an angel when it comes to vendor lock in. Customer support for Sony is also some of the worst in the industry.

The same thing that makes them think the S will sell, or that people will believe their crap about the Pro being able to play games in 4K even though its simply not possible for the GPU to do that natively. They are becoming apple in their anti-consumer arrogarnce. But they have somehting apple doesn't have - competition, competition that has better products coming, and better products in the market right now that actually DO care about their customers.

Since modders generally don't have full access to UWP games, not sure what the difference is.... well, of course, marketing suckers. If you don't believe in walls... you shouldn't buy a PS4 and you probably shouldn't be buying anything to do on the MS Store, UWP, and Xbox related... its more or less a closed system. So, this is like Hitlary funding the wall, then saying well.....Trump wanted a wall too.

FFXIV is a case of a company and fans asking for special favors from MS when they knew going in that the Xbox Live subscription isn't going anywhere for now (for the record, I agree that it would be nice to play the game without having to pay two subscriptions but in this case it's more on Square Enix than MS). And that isn't at all the same as Sony saying mods would come and then backing away after Bethesda already worked on it.

I mostly agree with you, but in that case Sony did a better job of accommodating fans by allowing FFXIV to have cross-platform play. There should be no reason that an Xbox Live subscription be required, since it would be using SE servers and not Microsoft's servers or infrastructure.

Glad I decided to get Fallout 4 on the X1. The mods have actually been pretty cool. Fallout 4 in my opinion actually runs better on the X1. My daughter didn't realize I bought Fallout 4 digitally on the X1 and bought it for me on the PS4 last Christmas. I enjoyed playing it much more on the X1.

Guy in very large glass house, throwing rocks at a guy with a house with a window. Haha.

What about UWP? I find this very fun to be honest, I mean PC players are saying the exact same thing about Microsoft and UWP. You really couldn't invent this stuff up that you get on the internet. PC gamers are like WTH and then laugh.

are you trying to make sense? sounds like you are just typing random words and hitting "comment".
I am sure you need to know what you are talking about. and you don't know every PC gamer to know if your comment makes sense or not.

Yep, it's still limited. But negates his argument entirely because the article is about PS4 not supporting the exact feature that Xbox (and also UWP) can. And in Sony's case it's not even a technical limitation, it's almost entirely politics.

Apple have never been dominant, except in the mp3 player sector, and briefly in the smart phone sector. In every sector they compete, there market share is 15% or below. The only thing you could say they're dominant in is "devices running iOS".

There is no console wars anymore, MS is intergrating Xbox with Windows 10.... software based... you are now console playing on your PC. Sony should continue to dominant for the time being as they are really the last traditional console player out there now.... of course, they will probably bail on it as well. Going forward you investing in an eco-system, not a hardware system.... Sony will make hardware if they can money on the hardware, but in the meantime they will expand their online type service.... either way the console wars have been over since 2013.

Okay. I just let you know that the bing translator is very bad with German in genetal. Making it difficult getting a translation of German specific phrases. The closest translation would probably be "beyond stupid"